It was a bright moonlit night with few stars, and everything was completely silent. Only the sound of waves lapping at the shore outside the island could be heard. Our first batch of thirty-two people were all selected by King Tian personally. They are smart and capable young men. Although I am young,
A little smaller, but his physical fitness has reached the level of General Ji and others. This is what he said. I also feel it. We bid farewell to the king and took three small boats and went straight to the island. Everyone held their breath and stared at the front.
What awaits us on the sea surface will be a race against time.
Also on the same boat were two craftsmen hired by General Ji from outside the island. They were surrounded by servants in the middle of the boat and carefully protected.
On Zhangdao, I had people cut down two trees far away from the cave entrance. They had to be straight, cut off the branches on the outside, and stuffed them in along the narrow entrance. General Su took three boats and hid in the cave.
If I hadn't known their location in advance as a lookout at night, it would have been really difficult for me to spot them. King Tian said at that time that he also wanted to come down with the first group of us. I told him that I wouldn't hesitate to come and take a look once I had some clues.
It was too late, so he stayed on the island
We crawled into the hole one by one like loaches. Every ten steps or so, one person would be left holding a hammer and chisel to carve out positions for torches on the half-man-high cave wall.
Five people were asked to do this, and the five people moved forward alternately. A tinkling sound suddenly sounded in their ears, and the silent cave soon became lively.
In the steeper areas, I left two more people to use shovels to build rough steps on the ground to facilitate walking. In the narrow areas of the cave entrance, I arranged for people to widen them. Of course, these are just fragmentary.
Live, the real tough battle is still behind
After walking for about four or five miles, we arrived at the U-shaped bend. The mason looked at the roof of the cave that was submerged in the water, made a ladder from one of the tree trunks, and leaned against the sloping roof of the cave from here.
He used a chisel to knock out a rough outline and told me that he planned to drill through here and open a stone door so that we would not have to walk under the water, but it could not exceed the height he designated, otherwise, the top of the cave would have to be drilled.
If it leaks, the sea will pour directly in, and none of us will survive.
We kept four more people and asked them to complete the task of digging the door. There should be no rush, one hammer at a time, and the broken stones should not fall into the water below. In the future, during the process of the project, all of us will
You also need to drink the water inside. If you send people back to Mo Island to get water now, it will be inconvenient and wasteful of manpower.
In total, I have sent out eleven people, and the remaining twenty-one Tian Wang men, plus two craftsmen, are still swimming across from the bottom of the water. We can’t afford to wait.
I told the four soldiers who were digging the hole that if the seven men at the back arrived here, I would ask them to work together to dig the hole, and the waste could not be transported out of the hole. After the hole was opened, the original five people who dug the torch eyes continued to do their original work.
They continued to chisel the torch holes until they saw our team, as did the two men who were repairing the steps.
We swam through the water, and a group of people stood in front of the giant snake's body. The timid ones were still hiding behind people. I arranged for three more people. Their task was to only open a vertical opening from the snake's belly.
, then peel off the snake skin completely, cut the snake meat into pieces, keep it clean and store it, and transport it inside. That is the ration for us people. "Snake meat, even gods are greedy for it," General Ji said loudly
Some of us are already salivating
I left five more people in the place covered with a thick layer of insect corpses. I told them to use a broom to sweep away the upper layer of insect corpses, and use a pickaxe to dig through the lower rock layer to find a kind of insect corpse.
The bright yellow crushed stones are shaped like faceted sulfur glass and melt when put into water. The ones with a bit salty taste are found and transported inside in sacks. The more the better, but they cannot be exposed to fire.
What I'm looking for is saltpeter
The scientific name of this thing is "Chilean saltpeter", but it is not unique to Chile. I told General Ji and General Meng that they went down to the cave with me today. I told them that the saltpeter I was looking for was essential for making gunpowder.
There are few raw materials, and our work below will eventually use gunpowder.
"Tian Zong, how did you know that there would be saltpeter here?" General Meng asked.
"Gunpowder? What is it used for?" General Ji also asked
Saltpeter belongs to the trigonal crystal system. It is mainly composed of nitrate radicals produced by the decomposition of decaying organic matter by nitrifying bacteria, and combined with sodium in the soil.
However, I just said to them, "You have never seen gunpowder. The gunpowder we are going to make today is slightly different from real gunpowder, but it is better than nothing."
General Meng said: "Don't be too pretentious, what is gunpowder used for?"
I said, "When the gunpowder breaks out, the sound is like thunder, and the heat reaches more than half an acre. It can break both human and cowhide, and there is no trace of it intact. Even though it is armor, it is also transparent to iron."
"In that case, why don't you make more gunpowder for the king and prepare it for the army? Then how can we be afraid of Liu Bang?"
"Weapons are not the only way to conquer the world. No matter how powerful or powerful they are, they are not used to subjugate people." More than two thousand years later, in the land of China, in Hunan, a man of great talent and great strategy appeared, arrogant among all the heroes.
The great man of the world has explained this point of view very thoroughly. Unfortunately, even as a college student in the past life, I admit that I can never find a better way to explain this truth.
When the fight for the dragon-slaying sword was bloody, I wonder if they had thought about this issue.
In fact, I know that if, as they said, we defeated Liu Bang with gunpowder, then the entire history will have to be rewritten from this era. Then, Emperor Wen and Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty who rested with the people, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty who expanded the territory, and
Where did it come from? Where did Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, who initiated the Zhenguan rule, come from?
Where do I come from?
The general trend, the huge wheel of history, how can it be a weapon that can be controlled by one person's power?
Let’s not say more. The fourteen people walked in again. Inside the turtle neck, I left four more people. They had two tasks. One was to widen the hole left after the crystal convex lens fell.
It was big enough for a person to walk through it; secondly, a two-foot-wide hole was dug on both sides of the cave wall. This hole required a large belly and a small mouth. After the hole was drilled, four people stood up and said "No" in unison.
!" and immediately got to work
The crisp sound of the steel chisel hitting the stone wall immediately echoed in your ears. Hearing it from afar, it gave people a sense of strength all over their body.
To put it briefly, I divided six more people into two groups, one group of four people, and went to scrape the sulfur from the sulfur cave and collect it for later use.
Another group of two people are looking for the stone stove. They will make plans after the stone cave at the back is opened and bulk materials can be transported in.
Now, only the two generals Ji and Meng and the two craftsmen are left with me. I reviewed the arrangement from the beginning:
Five people dug holes in the cave wall to place torches;
The two of them repaired the steep and slippery places along the way;
Four people were digging the stone gate in the U-shaped bend;
Three people, skin the snake to get its meat;
Five men, digging for saltpeter;
Four people walked into the entrance of the woman's cave and carved out the location for placing the explosives;
Four men, scraping the sulfur;
Two people, picking stones to build a stove
Total: twenty-seven people. The number of people I brought this time was neither more nor less. In the first step, I brought too many people, but the work was slowed down.
I asked the mason to go back and forth to check various construction sites and pay attention to the progress and everyone's safety. He agreed and went.